W. River Parkway trails to get rehab detours

The already detoured W. River Parkway will get added trail detours this week with trail reconstruction between Plymouth and Franklin avenues.

The work will mean trails closings through the rest of the construction season and into 2015, park officials said.

The 3.2 miles of trail in some spots include the original paving when portions of the bike and pedestrian trails were created. The trail ranges from as old as 38 years on spots of the parkway to as new as 16 years old in the newest segment of central riverfront parkway opened in 1998. Some of the latter area also was repaved after the construction of the new Interstate 35W bridge.

The parkway and its biking and walking trails have been closed just south of S. 4th Street since a June 19 mudslide. Minneapolis Park and Recreation officials have said that section of parkway near the University of Minnesota’s West Bank campus may not reopen by the end of the year, while they attempt to devise a means of stabilizing soil that continues to wash down the hill.

According to the most recent bike counts available, the parkway bike path is used by about 1,400 cyclists a day near the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

The work is being paid for by $2.2 million in state and federal funding. Work is scheduled to begin with tree removal on the project’s Franklin end, with removal of trail paving following next week, working upriver initially.

Completion of the entire project isn’t expected until next summer. Among the trail improvements planned as part of the project are better connections to the Stone Arch Bridge and the Cedar Lake Regional Trail, replacement of some warped or rotting planks opposite the Mill City Museum area, and a new trailhead with a kiosk and drinking fountain at the south end of Bohemian Flats.

Minneapolis police said they have linked two weekend shootings, which left residents frightened and sent some diving to the floor to avoid stray bullets, to an early-morning homicide last week that left a father of two dead on the city's North Side.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said his biggest regret as the county's top prosecutor was using grand juries to investigate the shootings of civilians by police, admitting that the process lacked transparency.

Meeting for the first time since the presidential election, the Minneapolis City Council on Friday affirmed their support for the city's minority groups and denounced policies they anticipate from President-elect Donald Trump's administration.